In the known art, there have been two ways of making a garment web into point of sale items. One is to put refastenable tabs, such as adhesive tape or hook and loop combinations onto the garment body, in the manner of an infant diaper, for later use to secure the back panel of the diaper to the front panel. A second is to bond the side edges of the front and back sections together to make a closed garment with fixed seams, in the manner of a training pant which is slid on and off the wearer like a regular adult garment. To remove such a garment if it becomes soiled, it is necessary to break the side region, i.e. tear the sides of the product from waist opening to leg hole, in order to remove the garment like a diaper, as convenience and hygiene would dictate.
It is therefore desired to provide a garment, such as a training pant, which may be slid-on in the fashion of adult underwear while being easily removeable in the manner of a diaper and which can be made with relatively uncomplicated machinery in a space-efficient manner.
The present invention can provide a readily and inexpensively producible refastenable incontinence garment. The garment can be desirably manufactured with its longitudinal axis in the cross machine, or cross, direction. A web of garment chassis materials extending in the machine direction can be overlaid with side panel webs. The side panel webs are attached to the chassis web at bonds spaced in the machine direction and have a first and a second cooperative fastener member, such as hook and loop fasteners, opposing each other in the cross direction. The side panels desirably do not extend beyond the chassis web, making the manufacturing process very compact. The manufactured garment is also compact and needs only one fold to place it in condition for packaging. The fold can place the cooperative fasteners in a fastening relationship. Each fastener member can be perforated, cut, or weakened at its midline such that the side panel webs will separate into left and right side panels upon opening the garment for use. The side panel webs are desirably shaped at selected edges to provide an efficacious leg hole fit. The side panel webs are further desirably elastic, extensible, or stretchable in the transverse direction of the resultant garment to provide an efficacious garment fit for the manufactured garment.